Meet the Good Listeners. I was introduced to this duo on the recommendation of a colleague who thought their music and accompanying story would make for an inspiring boomitude feature... and she was right. I get a lot of music sent my way but there was something about their unique sound that summoned my ears... they really stood out.
Read this on The Huffinginton Post
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Woodstock, NY: Couple weeks back, we had the opportunity to attend one of Levon Helm’s Midnight Rambles up at his studio, “The Barn,” in the woods of Woodstock, NY. It was the weekend of the Woodstock Film Festival, and Don’t Quit Your Daydream, a documentary about LA-based duo The Good Listeners, was a featured film making its East Coast premiere.]]>
"Entourage" star Adrian Grenier preached that music is a universal language on Wednesday night in LA. The musically gifted actor produced a documentary, which follows the band The Good Listeners on a cross-country trip.
Adrian is good friends with band members Clark Stiles andNathan Khyber. He once was even roommates with Clark and called it a "joy" and "treat" to hear the band rehearse in their home.
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Eminently well-suited for inclusion in a CD/DVD package, "Don't Quit Your Daydream" also stands on its own merits as a seriocomic docu about fortysomething popsters -- Clark Stiles and Nathan Khyber, collectively known as the Good Listeners -- who take a unique approach to jump-starting their stalled dreams of pop stardom. Fest and VOD circulation could capture simpatico auds, and limited theatrical playdates are entirely possible. Years after flirting with fame as members of a short-lived '90s rock band called Absinthe, Stiles and Khyber try another shot at success by taking a 24-day road trip, with recording equipment (and a film crew) loaded in a rented RV. Their goal: Record a new song with a local musician in each city they visit.]]>
So we might have just found the film that will make us reconsider our whole laze-around-a-pool-during-vacation plans.
"Don't Quit Your Daydream" follows the group The Good Listeners, aka musicians Nathan Khyber and Clark Stiles, as they journey the country and meet new musicians and make music together in the course of, really, a few hours.
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Entourage's Adrian Grenier rocks out with The Good Listeners Wednesday after a screening of their documentary, Don't Quit Your Daydream, at L.A.'s Egyptian Theatre. The actor served as a producer on the film, which follows the band on a cross-country trip.
http://www.people.com/people/gallery/0,,20396387,00.html#20803355
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What happens when you take two thirty something innovative and gifted indie rock musicians? Put them in a rented RV with a makeshift recording studio and filming equipment for a 24 day cross-country journey? Oh, and one more thing. Their plan was to travel to twelve different locations to collaborate musically with twelve different artists with whom they had never met, except for one.
Well, the answer is a film festival award-winning music documentary and praise worthy CD called "Don't Quit Your Daydream." The Los Angeles based duo, Clark Stiles and Nathan Khyber and their band "The Good Listeners" recently regaled an enthusiastic audience at the American Cinematheque's Egyptian Theater in Hollywood with a viewing of their celebrated documentary complete with a Q & A session followed by a live courtyard performance.
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"Don't Quit Your Daydream" is one of the best music documentaries of recent memory. It's the kind of film that could very well have been packed with self-pity and unbearable pretension, but instead it presents itself honestly and with a humble reverence for the act of creation. It is also thoroughly a documentary that belongs to the 21st century. In the midst of the incredible odds now against a kid in a garage ever making it big as a rock star someday, it has the maturity to admit that while fame would be nice, it's simply never a guarantee. Better to be an artist first.
A decade ago, Clark Stiles and Nathan Khyber were in a band called Absinthe. After playing South by Southwest and signing with a major label, the band fell apart. "Five guys with dreams being realized at the same time is a freakshow," Clark reflects. "We were kind of blitzkrieged by the notion of success," Nathan observes in a separate interview. Clark was unceremoniously dumped from the group. Sony did nothing with Absinthe's debut. And so both Clark and Nathan found themselves without a band and with a friendship in need of repair.
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Don’t Quit Your Daydream is a compelling story that documents The Good Listeners on their journey to write and record their third record. They take their studio mobile and make this record on the road in a different city each day, writing one new song with one unique, eclectic collaborator; sharing the same cathartic love for music and music making.]]>